Name: Child's Punch
Ingredients: 1 quart water; 1¼ pounds sugar; grated rind of 1 lemon; grated rind of 1 orange; juice of 2 oranges; juice of 4 lemons; 1 pint water; ½ pound candied cherries, chopped; ½ pound pineapple, chopped

Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Child's Punch

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

Boil 1 quart of water and 1¼ pounds of sugar together for 5 minutes.
Add the grated rind of 1 lemon and 1 orange.
When cool, strain the mixture.

Assemble and serve

Add the juice of 2 oranges and 4 lemons.
Pour into a punch bowl over a block of ice.
Add 1 pint more of water and the chopped cherries and pineapple.
Serve in small glasses.
If too sweet, add more lemon.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together10,634 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Orange + pineappletop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,664 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).
Lemon + pineappletop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,964 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together53,532 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Sugar + pineappletop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,841 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Sugar: Sweetens the punch and dissolves into the syrup that balances the citrus acidity.
Lemon juice: Adds sharp acidity that balances the sweetness of the syrup.
Orange juice: Adds fruity acidity and sweetness to the punch base.
Candied cherries: Add sweetness and chewy texture with bits of fruit flavour.
Pineapple: Adds juicy texture and tropical sweetness to the punch.